2016_09_20_ASCC

In attendance: Steven Bayne, Ryan Drake, Johanna Garvey, Terry-Ann Jones, David Lerner, Margaret McClure, David McFadden, Laura Nash, Giovanni Ruffini

Approval of minutes from last meeting:

Motion: Terry-Ann Jones moved for approval. Margaret McClure seconded. 7 in favor; 2 abstentions.

o Department Chairs have been emailing documents to the ASCC Chair instead and then it would be uploaded onto Google Drive by the ASCC Chair

· There is an upcoming new course management system “Course Leaf” by Russ Battista – not sure when that will be rolled out. In the meantime, the Google Form/Google Drive system will be used.

o She is the chair of the search committee for Psychology and the College Planning Committee so cannot do it in the Fall but can do it in the Spring, if necessary.

New Chair of ASCC: Giovanni Ruffini

Motion: Laura Nash motioned; David McFadden seconded.

· Johanna Garvey: Has concerns about the lack of reference to on campus support resources (like the counseling center) available for students on the syllabus. The course looks like it will cover sensitive subjects and those resources should be indicated.

· Terry-Ann Jones: It should also be made explicit for why the course name change.

o Laura Nash: There needs to be more conversation between disciplines to see where they can connect. Can this course maybe be team-taught? Other departments should at least be aware of similar things other departments are doing.

o Ryan Drake: Maybe this course fits in Applied Ethics more than English. It is an interesting hybrid and thinks the course needs to be taught. But given the amount of literature in the syllabus it is strange that this is taught through English. Does the professor have an ethical theory background to teach this appropriately?

· Steven Bayne: Plagiarism statement says “may result in a failing grade” it should read “will result as a zero for the assignment” – JOR wording

Motion: Laura Nash withdrew her motion to approve. Laura Nash motion to reject. Send it back to Department with concerns. All in favor for motion to reject.

EN 285: Asian American Diasporic Literatures: Ethical Challenges to Citizenship

Motion: David McFadden motioned to approve. Margaret McClure seconded.

· David McFadden: How is this different from Professor Rajan’s other course in Asian Diasporic Literatures?

o Johanna Garvey: From her understanding this is a revising of her other course with a new course number.

o Laura Nash: The policy is if 10% or more of the class is reworked it has to come through ASCC again and the old one would go away.

o Steven Bayne: In the minutes, Pearson notes, “That his new course will be distinct from the existing literature course and can be offered in the same curriculum.”

§ David McFadden: That comment doesn’t show that EN 285 will replace the other course (EN 283).

§ Johanna Garvey: I thought it was a reworking but that comment makes it confusing.

o David McFadden: There is also the issue with ethics – needs Applied Ethics to weigh in.

Motion: David McFadden withdrew his motion to approve. Send it back to Department with concerns. All in favor for motion to send back for revisions and clarifications.

Motion: Margaret McClure motioned to approve. Ryan Drake seconded.

· Laura Nash: We discussed this at the last meeting and this has revisions based on the feedback we gave them.

o Laura Nash: Fills a demand in the curriculum and it’s great that he is available to teach this for us.

Motion: Vote – all in favor to approve.

Motion: David McFadden motioned to approve. Johanna Garvey seconded.

o Steve Bayne: The JoR says around a third. If it is an in class exam it should be around a third but a paper or other projects can be higher.

Motion: Vote – all in favor to approve.

o Giovanni Ruffini: It is ok if it notes that graduate students have more higher-level work to do for the class.

o Steven Bayne: They do note that this course would work well as a UG and Grad course.

o Laura Nash: David Gudelunas notes that maybe they can teach CO 497 as a 7-week hybrid course. They are thinking of it as two separate classes.

§ Steven Bayne: In the course description what does it mean when they say, “Students will explore news headlines abreast extant literature focused on topics of race relations, communication styles, communication theory, and the social construction of race.” If this is going to be in the course catalog, he is not sure if students will understand that that means.

§ David McFadden: In the minutes, it seems like there was confusion over course requirements and Professor Nuru was going to edit for clarification but we do not have the revised requirements.

· Laura Nash: It looks like we have an older version. We can conditionally approve until they fix that.

§ Steven Bayne: Under the “Respect and Student Conduct” section it states “Please do not bring laptops to class unless you have a university-deemed reason to do so.” What does that mean? Is that a Disability question?

§ David McFadden: She did not answer the Department’s questions about the final exam. That needs to be addressed.

Motion: Conditional approval. 7 in favor to conditionally approve. 1 opposed.

Note: This is not a conditional approval for CO 497. Graduate course needs to be resubmitted to ASCC with a separate syllabus for consideration.

Motion: Johanna Garvey motioned to approve. Margaret McClure seconded.

· Steven Bayne: The Academic Dishonesty Statement on page 8 is incorrect. It says “you may receive a failing grade” should be “you will receive a 0 for the assignment”. Given that it is a graduate course, I recommend them to write that it would be a failure for the course but that’s the Department’s choice.

· Margaret McClure: In the minutes, the Department talks about a different grading scale for graduate courses “Below 70 is a failure for grad courses” but in this she may have put the undergraduate grading scale. Is there a difference? Maybe just have that checked with the Department.

o David Lerner: In CO 539, it has no plus or minus letter grade and in this one there is. Is that part of policy for graduate courses not to have a plus or minus?

§ Margaret McClure: This needs to just be rechecked by the Department to see what the grade scale policy is so that there is consistency.

§ Johanna Garvey: This may be because undergraduate students can take the class?

Motion: Conditional approval. 7 in favor to approve. 1 opposed.

Motion: Margaret McClure motioned to approve. David McFadden seconded.

· Steven Bayne: No course policies for attendance, DSS, and grading scale. There needs to be a course policy section added to syllabus.

· Laura Nash: They need to distinguish between goals, objectives, and outcomes – ask to do them to do this. This is important for assessment and to stay accredited.

Motion: Conditional approval. All in favor to conditionally approve.

· David McFadden: Professors LoMonaco and Porter pointed there is not that much depth on the theatre side of the course. And towards the end of the minutes they approved pending edits to the syllabus. We haven’t seen the revisions.

o Laura Nash: The revisions were very minor and approved because this course is not going to be offered as VPA core. There is not enough acting and art for theatre major/minor to be part of core.

· David McFadden: How does this make sense for it to not for core for theatre majors/minors

o Laura Nash: This is just for general elective. It is truly interdisciplinary between VPA and Nursing. Theatre Department was approached by Dean of Nursing to create this course. Placing Nursing students in clinicals is becoming expensive because of insurance and other factors. Also hospitals are moving towards having live actors as patients so students can practice skills on real people and to replace dummies. This is team taught by theatre and nursing professors. For some reason their accreditation process does not allow for this course to be under their curriculum; there’s no more room for electives in their curriculum.

o Laura Nash: After taking this class, students are somewhat certified to do this. They can be hired and paid as patient actors by School of Nursing and any hospital. Also the Dean of Nursing wants this to run and will pay for it to run. They would be happy if 3 students were in the course. This is way cheaper for them than the clinical placements.

o Laura Nash: This is mainly a service for Nursing. This may also be beneficial for Health Studies students.

· Steven Bayne: On the syllabus, the attendance policy does not mention “university sponsored events” anywhere. The JoR states that students participating in university-sponsored events not be penalized (page 36). Ask for a revision on the syllabus.

· Ryan Drake: There seems like there’s a lot of self-assessment (40% of grade). Can this be clarified?

o David Lerner: This does seem high but hasn’t seen a policy about this before.

· Giovanni Ruffini: Some of the issues raised in VPA seem to be problematic too.

Motion: Vote – 0 approved. 4 opposed. 2 abstained. Motion to approve failed.